The moment I started to write this post, I couldn't help but think of my great nephew and this picture from a family party. I laughed the whole evening just watching him. It was amazing to see how many "cookies" were secretly slipped to him. It was just so cute watching him eat them with that shirt on. Hope we did no lasting damage--smile!
Back to the post--There is a popular children's book by Laura Joffe Numeroff (with illustrations by Felicia Bond) entitled If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. As the story goes, a little boy gave a mouse a cookie, the mouse kept asking for more and more favors which eventually led back to asking for another cookie.
Anything sound familiar yet? I have a friend who always referred to the "Gimme, Gimme, Want, Wants." Anytime her children (or now grandchildren) started whining or begging for something, they,tongue-in-cheek, asked them if they had a case of the "gimme, gimme, want, wants."
A few years ago my brother-in-law was teaching school and his principal was incredibly generous to him in his first year at this particular school--trying to give him everything he asked for to make his room welcoming for him and his students. She had been so generous, he decided to take it one step further and ask for some computers for his room. Of course, he did not have the nerve to do this face to face so he asked her in an email. The response back simply said, "Have you ever read If You Give A Mouse A Cookie?"
Knowing he had been caught looking a gift horse in the mouth and wishing to cover his tracks with humor, he wrote back and told her he had not but asked if he could borrow her CliffNotes for it.
Okay, you knew I was going to do this--it is just too good of an analogy to pass up, right? God gives us what we need each day, we ask Him for a little more, He gives us a little more, we ask for a lot more, He gently nudges us that maybe we need to read a certain book to alleviate our "gimme, gimme, want, wants," and when we finally get the time, we look for the shortest verse, shortest chapter, a short commentary-- we go searching for CliffNotes for His Word.
I don't mean to sound preachy or judgmental, I just know what I have done in the past and still do at times.
I don't want to be guilty of just reading the CliffNotes to His Word. I want to search out His Word daily because I know it has all the answers I will ever need in this life.
He longs to give us sustenance that will last eternally.
"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Isaiah 55: 1,2
